Dino Crisis 2

Summary	Plot	Gameplay	Development	Marketing	Reception	Credits	Gallery	Translation errors	Further notes

Dino Crisis 2
Developer:	Capcom Production Studio 4
Publisher:	Capcom PAL Virgin Interactive
Director:	Shu Takumi
Writer:	Noboru Sugimura (lead) Yosuke Hirano Kishiko Miyagi
Producer:	Hiroyuki Kobayashi (producer) Shinji Mikami (executive producer)
Genre:	Action-adventure / Third-person shooter
Modes:	Single player
Platforms:	PlayStation, Microsoft Windows 98
Media:	CD-ROM
Input:	Controller, Keyboard
Release date(s):	PlayStation NA September 29, 2000 JP September 13, 2000 Windows JP 2003 NA August 20, 2003 PAL April 11, 2003
Ratings:	ESRB: Mature (M) CERO: 15+

Dino Crisis 2 is a third-person action-adventure game and sequel to Dino Crisis. The game was developed and published by Capcom and Virgin Interactive, respectively and was released for the PlayStation on September 30, 2000. The game received mixed to positive reviews and was followed by another sequel, Dino Crisis 3, which was released in 2003 for the Xbox. However, the official story-arc sequel to Dino Crisis 2 is actually Dino Stalker.

Plot

"One year has passed since the "Third Energy" incident... Dr. Kirk's research on "Third Energy" has been taken over by a government agency, and massive research has begun at a base somewhere in the mid west. However... In the pursuit of immediate results, they have failed to take the necessary precautions, and once again an accident has occurred. This time, the entire research base, military institution, and a small town close by have disappeared. In their place there now lies a jungle from another time... " — Dino Crisis 2 prologue (English version)

Over the course of a year after the 2009 raid on Ibis Island, Dr. Kirk's Third Energy research has prospered at a government-run research outpost. In March 2010, however, another runaway reaction has occurred, and an area encompassing the laboratory complex; the reactor facility; a military barracks; a missile silo and Edward City - a small town for the lab workers and their families - has been temporally displaced. In its place stands a jungle populated by Cretaceous-era fauna.

On 10 May 2010, the accident is re-created on a smaller scale to send a hovercraft carrying a platoon of the Tactical Reconnoitering and Acquisition Team (TRAT) in a rescue operation, carrying among them SORT agent Regina, owing to her prior experience fighting temporally-displaced dinosaurs on Ibis Island. Shortly after their arrival, the camp is attacked by a pack of Velociraptors, resulting in the deaths of the entire team sans Lt. Dylan Morton, David Falk and Regina. Falk is separated from Morton and Regina, who jump down a cliff to escape a Tyrannosaurus. The two also decide to split up in order to cover more ground.

As the two struggle to stay alive, they encounter leather-clad helmeted inhabitants who are hostile towards them, but their female leader, a girl named Paula is easily captured (saved, really). Though the girl is hostile towards Regina, she acts differently towards Dylan, almost as though she knows something about him. After constantly fleeing from the two heroes, she eventually leads Dylan into a large base complex where she shows him a recording that reveals the truth.

In the future, it is discovered that the 2009 overload in the Borginian Republic had consequently caused time alterations to the Cretaceous Era that would lead to disastrous results. The space-time skew would take its effect on all living organisms and would alter the Earth's history dramatically; preventing the human race from ever existing. To fix this, the international organization WAPP decided to transport all the creatures to a similar environment, 3 million years into the future, where they could thrive. They would then be sent back to their own time (bef.65 million years ago) when the crisis passed. This was called the "Noah's Ark Plan". However, the team suffered another overload when they were about to go back, and their Time Gate was destroyed. Thus, the team was trapped with the dinosaurs. All the survivors were killed, but their children were saved and brought to the safety of the Habitat Support Facility, where they were kept in life support chambers. However, the machines were meant for dinosaurs, and long habitation caused them to lose their ability of speech (although they could regain it) and internalize instinct to protect the dinosaurs. These children are the mysterious helmet-wearing teenagers Regina and Dylan encountered throughout the game. Apparently, one of the members of the team that came to the future was Dylan himself, older. His daughter, Paula, is the blonde haired mystery girl. It appears that in the overloading incident, Edward City itself had been transported to the same future.

Gameplay

In a change from the survival horror theme of the first game, Dino Crisis 2 is more shoot 'em up oriented. The character always runs, thus removing the need for the run button from the first game, a second gun (machete, stun gun, firewall, chain mine and shock gun) can be carried and more weapons were added to the game (hand gun, shotgun, solid cannon, flame launcher, sub-machine gun, heavy machine gun, anti-tank rifle, missile pod, rocket launcher, needle gun, aqua grenade). Besides changes to the gameplay, the game also introduces new species of dinosaurs and lizards, such as the Triceratops, Giganotosaurus, Allosaurus, Pteranodon, Mosasaurus,Plesiosaurus, Inostrancevia and Oviraptor. The game also adds "extinction points" and "combo points" which help you to buy ammo (which is no longer scarce) and weapons and to unlock hidden features when the game is finished. Some of the features include Extra Crisis mode, which has two minigames: "Dino Colosseum" where the player faces a procession of dinosaurs in turn, (similar to the Survival mode seen in many fighting games) and "Dino Duel", a battle mode where players were able to play as certain dinosaurs, much like the video game Warpath: Jurassic Park.

Development

Due to an internal shake-up within Capcom in 1999, Yoshiki Okamoto's Planning Room 2 was shut-down and replaced by Production Studio 4, to be led by Shinji Mikami as Executive Producer. This shake-up left Mikami with too much work to actively work on Dino Crisis 2, and Hiroyuki Kobayashi was instead hired on as Producer. A new company set-up by Okamoto known as Flagship had also recently been acquired by Capcom, and creative control of the project was given to company head Noboru Sugimura, running against the previous game's development where Mikami and a team of Planners developed both the story and script. The final shake-up was the hiring on of Shu Takumi as director; Takumi himself was briefly Director on Dino Crisis in 1997 while Mikami worked on Resident Evil 2, and this was his first time directing throughout.

Programming

Running contrary to the previous game in the series, Mikami and Kobayashi agreed that Dino Crisis 2 should rely on arcade-style features, abandon item-management, and give the player easy access to enemies so they could far outperform the dinosaur enemies so the user experience is more fun. In an interview for Prime Games, Kobayashi described the core theme of the gameplay as being "the exhilaration of defeating a succession of dinosaurs". A points system was designed so players have more enjoyment in fighting; these points can be used as currency at in-game shops, where more ammunition and more powerful weapons can be purchased, eliminating the need for item management. Sub-Weapons were also designed to give players more ways of fighting enemies, such as a powerful machete or the Firewall. One of Mikami's own proposals was that the player be able to run and shoot at the same time.

Design

Concept art of Military Facility/Entrance by Yusuke Kan

The graphic department was headed by Kazunori Tazaki, who was also in charge of creating and designing the characters for the game. The CG models were then created by Yasuyo Kondou and Kaoru Araki.

As was more typical with Planning Room 2 and early Studio 4 titles, Dino Crisis 2 used 2D pre-rendered backgrounds. These were done by creating 3D environments, taking 2D 320 × 240 still shots of them at different angles and then programming hidden walls to simulate a third dimension. This was a process Capcom started with Resident Evil due to the PlayStation's graphics and memory limitations, and since Resident Evil 2 the absolute limit was reached at sixteen still shots per room.

The CG art inspired by it.

The background art team was led by Masachika Kawata, with Yusuke Kan drawing sketches for each room. When agreed upon, a larger team would then create CG artwork based on the sketches. To create a more convincing jungle environment, a team had to do research on what jungle environments look like, as well as how the ground is lit in such dense woodland.

Story

Development of the Dino Crisis 2 story was split between the internal planning department and the external professional writing studio, Flagship. The story was created by Flagship's head writer, Noboru Sugimura, with Yusuke Hirano and Kishiko Miyagi as co-writers. The scriptwriting process focused initially on the opening and ending cutscenes; other scenes were written afterwards around the game objectives, following meetings with the Planning department. This department consisted of. 

The story development was not set in stone, it should be noted. The ending cutscene was scripted to be longer, and feature Regina exiting the time gate in 2010, running into the arms of her lover and SORT superior, Alex. The 2010 setting was removed, and Alex is not mentioned at all in the released game. At one point the character of Paula was intended to be the daughter of Dr. Edward Kirk, who appeared in the previous game. This was altered to make her Dylan's daughter, possibly to add a time-travel element.

Sounds

McClear/Digital was hired as the studio for English dubbing to take place. Based on 255 Mutual St. in Toronto, Paul Seeley's Studio Four was used for professional dubbing. Capcom's Susan Hart and Eriz Suzuki served as Producer and Director, respectively.

Further notes

• The game features three post-rating epilogue scenes showing the main characters in happier settings. One features Dylan driving a red sports car through a city, Regina has two endings with her standing in front of a window in her bedroom, and a third shows Paula lying in a grassy field, wearing her necklace and smiling as bubbles float by. Which image is shown changes depending on how many times the player has beaten the game.

Sources

excerpts

references

External links

• Dino Crisis 2 official site (Japanese)